Microsoft is kicking up a notch its competition with Apple's iPad with a new, limited time trade-in offer.

"Trade in your iPad, Get a min. $200 gift card," according to the deal, outlined on the Microsoft Online store site. The gift card may be used towards the purchase of a Microsoft Surface or other products available through the Microsoft Store.

Interesting. I don't know a single person who bought an iPhone for Siri, or considers Siri to be anything more than built-in entertainment. I guess in your part of the world, where ever that is, having conversations with your cell phone is the thing to do.

I know a few who site Siri as a reason to get iOS. Not the only reason, of course, but a clear feature advantage with a distinct style and method. Enough that it's stupid for competitors to advertise it.

If people speak to their phones to get things done - is that more/less idiotic than sitting here typing useless opinions about mobile operating systems?

And when I say handsfree, I mean:
- in the car
- on your bike
- with dirty/wet hands
- with shaky or damaged hands
- blind or paraplegic users
- while typing on or holding something else

If you can't cross-reference the uses with the use cases and find something you'd do with a free, included feature of iOS, you are trying way to hard to ignore the obvious.

Man-machine interfaces are always moving to something more efficient. We've done switches, characters in a string, mouses, trackpads, touchscreens, multitouch, and now voice control. It's kind of obvious to me. The only way to attack Siri is to talk to another system that can do more.